Sunday, August 20, 2006

The Scottish Executive has come up with a plan to help prevent knife crime. The sale of swords is now banned, "unless sold for legitimate reasons". Selling swords is soon to become a lot more profitable in Scotland. Never mind that swords are not easily concealed and thus not the most popular bladed instrument to carry on your person.

Shops selling swords will need a licence, as will businesses dealing with non-domestic knives and other bladed weapons such as machetes.

The measures are the latest steps from the Scottish Executive to curb the problem of knife crime.

They come weeks after a nationwide knife amnesty.

A total of 12,645 blades - including lock knives, machetes, swords, meat cleavers, bayonets and axes - were handed in during the five-week amnesty.

Exemptions to the ban on sword sales include swords that are to be used for Highland dancing, museum displays, historical re-enactments, fencing and martial arts.

[..] Kenny MacAskill MSP, justice spokesman for the SNP, said: "We must continue to recognise that knives are as much of a cultural problem in our communities as they are a criminal one.

"We must ensure we tackle the causes as well as the symptoms of this scar on our communities."

You see, says Mr. Kenny, the evil hetronormative capitalists who sell these instruments of destruction to otherwise innocent victims of the oppressed minority threaten the diversity of our multicultural ecology. But what Mr. Kenny and the Scottish authority fail to appreciate is that the mad quest for material gain makes it possible for poverty-stricken-activists to purchase swords to impale people for a crust of bread.